2018-05-02T20:00:00-06:002018-05-03T01:00:00-06:00http://calgary.carpediem.cd/data/afisha/bp/29/df/29dfb0ab45.jpgX92.9 Calgary's Alternative Xposure Show Presents: Born Ruffians with Little Junior live on May 2nd at The Gateway in support of their new album «Uncle, Duke & The Chief» (Coming Feb 16th). BORN RUFFIANS bornruffians.ca/ Check out their brand new song 'M...http://calgary.carpediem.cd/events5590623-born-ruffians-with-little-junior-at-the-gateway/Born Ruffians with Little Junior1301 16th Avenue, Calgary, Alberta T2M 0L4The Gateway

Ten years ago, on the very first song on their very first album, Born Ruffians revealed their ambitions to start their own country. They didn’t really offer details about how they would go about legally annexing land, drafting a constitution or establishing a native currency, but we did know this much: it had a population of three—singer/guitarist Luke Lalonde, bassist Mitch DeRosier and drummer Steve Hamelin. It would have a simple flag made up of the colors waved in the album’s title, Red, Yellow & Blue. And as that album vividly illustrated, their country was a primitive place marked by jagged terrain, rickety footbridges and sudden tremors. Its roughly sketched borders were defended by makeshift fences made of tangled guitar strings, broken drumsticks and—when all else failed—ravenous hoots ‘n’ hollers.

From “Forget Me” onward, Uncle, Duke & the Chief daringly tap-dances along the line separating celebration and sorrow. While none of the songs explicitly address his father’s cancer battle, “Spread So
Thin” presents a gleaming, soft-focus account of a dream Lalonde had about meeting his dad as a young man, a seemingly sanguine scene that nonetheless underscores the passage of time, the effects of aging, and the inability to recapture the past. And the wistful ballad “Working Together” grapples with a young couple’s difficult decision to terminate a pregnancy, before the song’s “Hey Jude”-sized outro provides the warm communal embrace that friends need to get through tough times. Meanwhile, the album’s barnstorming centerpiece, “Fade to Black,” deals with loss of a different, more insidious kind—that of motivation and spirit.

Staring down a career crossroads, consumed with
doubt and thoughts of mortality, they’ve responded with a record as beautiful, exhilarating, chaotic and nervewracking as life itself. Uncle, duke and the chief are home again. youtu.be/0qlo0mhBcGA

LITTLE JUNIOR littlejuniorband.com/
Little Junior have been making music together since they were kids. Their sound is everything you’d expect from childhood friends; bombastic, mischievous, discordant at times, but like all good friends, tight as hell. They sing about what they know with distinctly satirical bite; beers, breakups, apathy, boredom, and shitty friends. They play the only way the know how – leaving it all on the stage. Big hooks give way to bigger guitar lines, and though their songs are often short, they always leave you wanting more.youtu.be/GmalQ5par5s